A few years ago a manager at the local McDonald's gave me a Wyse wy-55 dumb terminal that was used as a ticketing KVS system from their kitchen. I tried to use this once before but couldn't get a working keyboard for it. I found a cheap used keyboard for the system on ebay for 20 bucks. It's a life time of a deal since most places want at lest 59 bucks for a used keyboard. All whats left is a USB to RS-232 Serial adapter and a day of figuring it out.

Until the keyboard gets here im going to paint the case to the terminal black and gray to match the rest of my hardware.

Got the Null modem cable built and also was lucky enough to find a USB to serial adapter at the flea-market for 5 bucks.

Spent four hours getting the terminal to talk to the hackintosh and finally got it working. I used this guide to setup the host end and had to figure out the rest on my own with the terminal. Sadly there isn't a manual laying around let alone a downloadable manual or e-book for this terminal. Right now im playing a classic MUD D&D style on a friend's server. Later on I need to set the terminal on it's own stand. I have a little file cabinet that has wheels, should be perfect so I can roll it around the desk when I want to use it.

I forgot to mention on how I built my cable. The Wyse terminal uses two DB25 RS-232 female serial ports. My Hackintosh has a single DB9 serial port but OSx does not see it so I have to use a USB to RS-232 converter. You would think the null modem cable would be simple but not really. The pin layout on the terminal is different.

At first it would think a serial extension cable with a db25 male adapter would work but the grounds wouldn't match. I decided to make things easy by using some old serial to RJ45 adapters. The pins can be switched around so everything will match.

Also the neat thing with these adapters if I ever want to add hand shaking I can just repin the adapters.

Xplain's use of MacNews, AppleCentral and AppleExpo are not affiliated with Apple, Inc. MacTech is a registered trademark of Xplain Corporation. AppleCentral, MacNews, Xplain, "The journal of Apple technology", Apple Expo, Explain It, MacDev, MacDev-1, THINK Reference, NetProfessional, MacTech Central, MacTech Domains, MacForge, and the MacTutorMan are trademarks or service marks of Xplain Corp. Sprocket is a registered trademark of eSprocket Corp. Other trademarks and copyrights appearing in this printing or software remain the property of their respective holders.

All contents are Copyright 1984-2010 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.